Nocturnal Animals
In the poem nocturnal animals show up in the daytime. Mingle with squirrels. A bird pulls a worm from the neighbor’s yard. I remember a lesson in high school biology on dissecting frogs. How surprised I was to see the clarity of the organs—discrete objects in the body. The next stanza dissects boundaries and personal property. Chain linked fences and cultivated lawns. Then an inordinate amount of white space. The eyes of owls superimposed on maps of towns. Charlie’s white Toyota pick-up parked by the garage. And the quote—When an opossum is playing possum, it’s actually involuntarily unconscious. In the penultimate line, moths, the poor cousins of the butterflies, flock toward the light.
out past the back fence
they thrum
in the
thickets
hover
they feed
usual–
ly in
yellow
zillions
yellow
but of
death
jelly
telling
or for
mourning
royal
keeping
nectar
strumming
keeper
dead but
who will
tell them?
Jeanne Morel is the author of the chapbooks, “Jackpot” (Bottlecap Press), “That Crossing Is Not Automatic’ (Tarpaulin Sky Press), and “I See My Way to Some Partial Results” (forthcoming from Ravenna Press). She holds an MFA from Pacific University. Jeanne lives in Seattle where she teaches writing at Bellevue College and is a gallery guide at the Frye Art Museum.